5 Major Plot Predictions For Star Wars Episodes 8 & 9

It's not just going to be a remake of The Empire Strikes Back.

Star Wars Episode VIII

In the words of C-3PO, here we go again. Episode VII struck with the Force of a sun-zapping superweapon, smashing all but the James Cameron-only box office records and earning a positive critical reaction that Star Wars hasn't seen in decades. However, The Force Awakens was just the beginning; Rogue One hit big in 2016, and Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi is on its way this December, meaning eyes are firmly fixed on the bright future of the franchise.

Theories abound, from trying to clear up The Force Awakens' hanging plot threads to predicting where the new sequel trilogy will go. There's not been this much rampant speculation since fans tried to piece together want went wrong with The Phantom Menace. What many theories and predictions seem to forget is that there's a greater structure to Star Wars outside of being a simple ongoing trilogy.

People may mock him for saying Star Wars rhymes during the development of Episode I, but that is exactly how George Lucas conceived the saga and is how Disney appear to be extending it - as it stands now, each trilogy deals with a new generation of Skywalkers and uses narrative recurrence to show how they each deal with the same universal problems of good and bad in increasingly different ways.

That's why Luke couldn't be on the Dark Side in The Force Awakens and why Kylo Ren won't be revealed to be a double agent - they're cool plot twists, but don't tie into the stronger overarching structure. So, taking the whole saga into account and what a sequel trilogy means in reference to the movies that preceded it, here's a detailed prediction for where the saga will go.

